Former All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant and immediate-past Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has said he was not aware of any move by the presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to reconcile him with a chieftain of the party in Rivers State, Senator Magnus Ngei Abe.
Abe served as Secretary to the Rivers State Government during the Amaechi’s first tenure in office as governor and later represented Rivers South-East senatorial district in the National Assembly.
Amaechi, who spoke with journalists at the APC State secretariat in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital on Saturday, said; “I am not aware that there are plans by Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu to reconcile myself and Magnus Abe.”
The former Minister, who was on his first visit to the State since after losing the APC presidential ticket to Tinubu about four weeks ago, however, said he was making efforts to reconcile all aggrieved persons within the party.
He said: “Anytime you have transition, you are bound to have disagreement. I am talking about internal rancour amongst us. In one, two, three weeks, we will be able to resolve what the issues are. The issues are not about the governorship candidate. I need to sit with them and say, can we move forward.”
On the alleged N96billion fraudulent sale of assets of the state, Amaechi stated that going by the judgement of the Supreme Court, the Rivers State government needed to take the report of the panel that investigated the sale of the assets to either the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Nigerian Police or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Amaechi said: “I hope that the governor has good lawyers. The Supreme Court said in their judgement that he has powers to set up a panel and the job of the panel is to gather information.
“That after gathering the information, they should pass the information to either ICPC, Police or EFCC. The Police has not invited me, ICPC has not invited me and EFCC has not invited me.
“Secondly, there is what we call fair hearing. At that point where they will invite me, it is called fair hearing because they will hear my own side of the story. You have not heard my own side of the story and you went to Court to do what. Something must he giving you confidence.
“It is not about being served by the Court, the Supreme Court said before you go ahead, you have to send it to the investigating authorities and it is when they finish investigation that they will decide whether the matter will come to Court or not. You have not done any of those things and you are in Court. So, what will you be telling the Court.
“Two, everything that was done was done transparently. There was an agency called the Public Procurement Agency and all those things passed through.
“We shouldn’t be talking about an issue that is before the Court. Let the Court decide. Tonye Cole didn’t not act in his personal capacity, he represented Sahara Energy. You know this is political because they are afraid.”
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